A sub-optimally calibrated imaging system is inconvenient in recreational applications. For example, a photograph from a sub-optimally calibrated system may not faithfully or artistically present the view a vacationer remembers. A sub-optimally calibrated imaging system may be fatal in military or security applications. For example, an image from a sub-optimally calibrated system that is used to activate an alarm or weapons system may lead to catastrophic consequences if ordinance or other measures are delivered inaccurately or inappropriately based on aberrations in the image. Thus, more optimal calibration approaches that facilitate high-speed, high-resolution, wide field of view (FoV) imaging are constantly sought.
A panoramic imaging system may acquire multiple images (e.g., digital photographs) that when processed into a single image provide a larger field of view than is available in a single image. For example, a panoramic imaging system may acquire multiple images that when processed together provide a three hundred and sixty degree view of an area around the imaging system. Conventionally there have been different approaches for acquiring the multiple images that are processed together into a single image that has a larger field of view. One conventional approach to panoramic imaging includes acquiring images from several image acquisition apparatus (e.g., cameras) that are pointed in different directions. Another conventional approach to panoramic imaging includes moving a single image acquisition apparatus to different positions. Regardless of how the multiple images are acquired, the quality of the final image depends on several factors. One factor is the lens through which the individual images are acquired.
Lenses are rarely, if ever, perfect. Lenses frequently have aberrations that reduce the fidelity of an image produced using the lens. Fidelity, as used herein, refers to the degree to which an electronic imaging system accurately reproduces a two dimensional image of a three dimensional scene from which the electronic imaging system receives electro-magnetic radiation as an input signal.
Calibrating an imaging system to account for an imperfection in a lens is well known for certain configurations. For example, calibrating an imaging apparatus (e.g., camera) that will capture single images from a single point of view (PoV) using a single field of view (FoV) produces interesting problems whose solutions are well known. However, calibrating an imaging system that will capture multiple images from multiple points of view using multiple fields of view while being relocated from position to position while operating parameters change produces more complicated problems for which conventional systems provide no answers.